Bastian Schweinsteiger was one of the players of the World Cup in Brazil and in the final was one of the star players even having his face stapled when he split it in a head clash. Germany won the world cup and he played such a huge roll but he is not just a strong player, his ability on the ball to play passes and make himself available for the return is second to none.

Watch the Tactics Board session on the link below that helps to develop players to have that ability to distribute the ball with pace and accuracy.

By David Clarke

When a player like Bixente Lizarazu talks, you listen. After all, he can lay claim to one of the most impressive CVs of any French footballer – a World Cup winner with France in 1998 and European Championships winner two years later, he has also clinched numerous honours at club level with German giants Bayern Munich.

I was listening to him talking about his time at Bordeaux playing with Zinedine Zidane. That was where they first built up the understanding they were to use with such devastating effect at international level.

I think you’ll be interested to hear what he had to say:

“I played with Zidane, and Christophe Dugarry too! That’s where our triangular interplay first began, though that period didn’t last for long as Zizou went off to Juventus and Duga to AC Milan. “But we’d worked on those moves so often that every time we lined up together for France the magic was still there. It was like I had a luminous presence by my side.

“I’d give them the ball and they’d give it back to me as carefully as if they were handing me a flower. And that isn’t easy!

“Sometimes you’ll pass to a player and you know that he’ll never give you the ball back. As a result you stop making as many runs and the team’s play stagnates.”

It is the final sentence I found most interesting. If an international player stops running off the ball because he feels he won’t get it back, how will a young player react to the same situation?

Last weekend a coach friend of mine asked me to come and watch his team play in a friendly. They’ve been losing heavily and not scoring many goals, and he hadn’t been able to understand why. I watched his team play and they did everything right – quick passing into the opposition half and good support.

But once they got into the final third whoever got the ball tried to jink and weave their way through alone. This was often despite having players over in good supporting positions. As the match wore on the team got hit on the break as players began to stop running – and Lizarazu’s words came back to me.

They stopped running because they had passed the ball and knew they wouldn’t get it back. The problem was obvious to me but it wasn’t until I pointed it out to the coach that he got it.

Now he needs to run a few weeks of training working on passing and movement in the final third of the pitch. Simple one- or two-touch games will be hugely influential to his team because players will be forced to see what’s around them rather than insisting on going it alone.

After all, it is a team game.

Watch the highlights of the 1998 World Cup Final between France and Brazil to see some fantastic play in the final third with Lizarazu, Dugarry and Zidane: